Eschewing the pledge

Regarding that pledge of blue-red civility and support for the president that blogger Jeff Jarvis made over the weekend, Reason magazine's Matt Welch dissents on his personal blog:

To split hairs first, I "support" this president just fine without uttering a single kind word -- by paying thousands of dollars a year in federal taxes, most of which pays for stuff I probably don't like. Same was true under Clinton, Bush the Elder, and even old Poppy Poo-Pants. To be all libertariany about it, my support has already been amply coerced, thank you very much.

More relevantly, American's just another word for "dude who reserves the right to be left the hell alone." I have uttered supportive and critical words about every president since Chevy Chase, and I've tried in my crippled way to contribute to "civilized discourse" (whatever that may be); I see no reason for these things to change, given my line of work.

But unite? Work together? Pushing? And above all, pledge?? Oh hail nah.

He also dings Jarvis and other bloggers for "constantly repeat(ing) the speculative and highly dubious claim" that the mainstream media were trying to to rally voters for Kerry, saying they are "assuming bad faith and making (in my judgment) a laughable factual error."